Self Employed Covid-19 Help

jamie8188

Morning All,

im looking for some help/guidance regarding support for Self Employed and hoping this forum will give me some much needed insight....

I have been extremely affected by Covid-19 as I'm sure many have, i recently (June 2019) became self employed as a Sales Consultant for bars and restaurants, as you can imagine since March/April work for me and my clients have all come to a halt and i have no income. I have applied for Universal Credit which gives me £935 a month, living in London and with rent you can imagine this doesn’t stretch quite far.

I’m aware i don’t qualify for SE grants due to not having a tax return in 18/19, only 19/20 but i guess my question is, is there any help in addition to the above that I'm eligible for that i am unaware of currently?

Any information or guidance would be greatly appreciated!

calcotti

If you are liable for Council Tax you can claim Council Tax Reduction from your local authority.

Grumpy_chap

I assume you don't operate from a business premises.
Does the UC you receive include an allowance for housing costs?
You might be able to consider Bounce Back Loan.

H_and_V_Man

hello i just needed some advice.
i am self employed and 4-5 years ago i injured my hand so badly could not work and had some savings to survive on and informed HMRC at the time and lady on phone said she would list it as not working and tax forms would list me a dormant and auto fill my tax forms and in Sept 2019 I returned to work with 80% movement and strength back in hand (due to savings running out) and did a few small jobs but then Covid19 hit and i got text saying stay home.
I called the helpline and was told i qualified if i paid backdated NI (£162) so borrowed this and paid the same day as getting letter.
2 weeks later I get letter saying I do not qualify as missing 2019-2020 tax filings so called HMRC and they said they would review and 2 weeks later they replied and said they have not got any completed tax forms since 2016 and I do not qualify which I thought was harsh as they tricked me into paying backdated NI while I was penniless and Universal Credit people said I can not back date a claim to the date of the official lock down which caused me to miss those 2 months while waiting for HMRC to reject my claim (and this included the month when the government had not decided what the help for self employed people would be) as I heard that if you claimed Universal Credit you could not claim self employed help as well so waited for government guidelines to be announced which resulted in a missed month of Universal Credit so wondering if it is correct that Universal Credit can not be back dated to official lock down date as never claimed any sort of benefits before?
It was unclear on what the government was going to announce 1 month after lock down started and left HMRC to make their mind up after tricking me for back dated NI which has resulted in me paying HMRC £162 and get £345 from Universal Credit so for 3 months of lock down they have paid me between them £183 which does not even pay my shopping/food expenses let alone insurance payments on van, tools, public liability, rent and road tax for 3 months and now left with a mountain of debt so any advice on what I could do would be greatly received as not even sure if I can claim the bounce back loans/grant?

Jeremy535897

I am not clear why you got the advice you got from HMRC, because on the facts you have given, you did not trade from some time in 2016 to September 2019, which means you were never going to be eligible for SEISS (one of the requirements is that you traded in 2018/19 and submitted your tax return by 23 April 2020).

I don't know why you were asked to pay what I assume is class 2 NIC voluntarily as that has nothing to do with SEISS. It may gain you an extra year of contributions for state pension purposes. The amount seems a bit high.

Not filing 2019/20 is of no consequence as it is not a requirement for SEISS and you have until 31 January 2021 to do it.

There was never any suggestion from government or HMRC that claiming universal credit would impact on SEISS, but it was a rumour that gained such traction that later government guidance specifically debunked it as nonsense.

You can only backdate universal credit claims in restricted cases:

"Backdating your Universal Credit

You can apply to get a Universal Credit payment to cover up to 1 month before you started your claim - this is called 'backdating'. You’ll need a good reason for not claiming earlier - if you’re in a couple, you’ll both need a good reason. For example, this could be because:

• of an illness - you’ll have to show the DWP medical evidence for this
• of a disability
• you weren’t told your Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) or Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) was going to end
• the online claims system was down, and you claimed as soon as it was working again
• you've made a new claim as a single person after breaking up with your partner - check what to do if you're in this situation
• you made a joint claim that ended because your partner didn’t accept the claimant commitment - you should now be claiming as a single person

You might not have claimed in time because the DWP told you the wrong thing. If this happens you can complain and ask for compensation."

Your business restarted in September 2019 and then stopped in February 2020. Is work now available? Are you going to continue as self employed? If so, you might try for a bounce back loan, but if you don't have a business bank account, it is unfortunately unlikely that a bank will give you one, as your business did not restart until after 5 April 2019. See https://www.british-business-bank.co.uk/ourpartners/coronavirus-business-interruption-loan-schemes/bounce-back-loans/faqs-for-small-businesses/

Grumpy_chap

I am not sure what Jeremy referenced by business did not restart until after 5 April 2019
Bounce back loan is eligible if the business established on or before 1 March 2020

Jeremy535897

Grumpy_chap said:

I am not sure what Jeremy referenced by business did not restart until after 5 April 2019
Bounce back loan is eligible if the business established on or before 1 March 2020

If you don't have a business bank account, you need a feeder account, and a lot of banks won't open a feeder account unless you were in business before 6 April 2019. See for example:
https://www.business.natwest.com/business/support-centre/service-status/coronavirus/bounce-back-loan/bounce-back-loan-support.html

Grumpy_chap

Thanks Jeremy.

H_and_V_Man

thank you so much for your help and advice.
HMRC said it was NIC voluntarily at a higher rate due to it not having been paid when it was meant to be.
I read what you have both said but worried it might anger HMRC as they told me i was eligible but I was always told never mess or anger the Tax Man as they can do other things to get pay back (as warned by an old accountant) so have always tried to be honest and truthful with them regarding Tax matters.
I do plan to countine to be self employed but I am really struggling to keep my head above water as brought a new van which I had to borrow money to buy as old van died and failed the MOT but have not claimed it as an expense or loan as I needed to talk to a new accountant first about that so I have bookmarked the links you gave me to read later tonight.
I do not currently have a business account and just use my savings account for work and my current account for personal stuff as the bank I enquired with about it wanted a fee to start one and at the time I couldn't really afford it as work was spotty and not to regular so thought that I could do that later once I was back up and running like before.
The DWP never said to me about only claiming one or the other, it was what i read online and what other self employed people said to me and I didnt know you could do both until HMRC said to claim Universal Credit until they had processed my claim (which happened to be 1 month after lock down due to government not knowing what was going to be announced) and when I was told this it happened to be over a month after the cut off date for that month so I could only claim from 22nd April to 21st May (still waiting on the 22nd May to 21st June payment).
I tried to contact HMRC about SEISS around the 20th March but told it wasn't available then and tried again regularly but was told it wasn't going to be available until mid May and just check again for it to now say

"12 June 2020

Further information about the extension to the scheme has been added.

29 May 2020

The scheme has now been extended. A second and final grant will be available when the scheme opens again in August 2020. If you’re eligible and want to claim the first grant you must make your claim on or before 13 July 2020.

13 May 2020

The online service is now available. Make your claim from the date we gave you when you checked your eligibility.

12 May 2020

Added translation

4 May 2020

The 'How to claim' section updated with the date the online service will be available, if you’re eligible, we will tell you the date you can make your claim from and that if your claim is approved you’ll receive your payment within 6 working days.

4 May 2020

You can use our new online tool to find out if you’re eligible to make a claim.

1 May 2020

More information has been added about who can claim the grant and how different circumstances can affect the scheme. Information on how state aid could affect your claim has been added and we’ve included information about the impact of claiming the grant on all work visas.

21 April 2020

Updated as previous version published in error.

14 April 2020

This guidance has been updated with more information about the coronavirus (COVID-19) Self-employment Income Support Scheme.

26 March 2020

First published".

It was not really ready and up and running until 13th May 2020 but the UK government imposed the lock down on the evening of 23 March ( claim date would have needed to be made 21st March to cover that date or no later than 21st April) and as self employed we were not sure what was going to happen until 13th May 2020 so had no chance to claim for missing dates/month.
I will have to have a closer look at the links you posted before deciding what I should do next but thank you both for the help and advice and hopefully it gives me some more options to recover from this Covid-19 mess and praying there is no second wave or I will be sunk like many others in similar situations or have been rejected as well.

Grumpy_chap

That is a long post (again) that I struggle to follow.

You will not qualify for SEISS as you were not trading as sole trader self employed in 2018-19.

This should really be a new thread, not hijacking a thread on a different matter.

Jeremy535897

I suspected that might be the case with the NIC. Do you know what year it was paid for? If you weren't trading, or earned less than the minimum figure for class 2 to apply, they charged it in error. It may well be advisable for you to employ an accountant to sort things out for you, and to advise you regarding claiming tax relief on the van, but I am afraid you won't get a SEISS grant, you won't get backdated universal credit, and you probably won't be eligible for a bounce back loan (but talk to your bank).